Sunday, 16 September 2012

Pumpkin, corn and feta salad and my weekend

I bought my first ever packet of hemp seeds yesterday. Then I set about finding some recipes to use them. I decided to make a version of Angela's Speedy Summer Hemp Power Salad. I roasted pumpkin, used whatever was in my fridge and forgot to add hemp seeds. It didn't have much resemblance to Angela's salad but it was tasty. Before telling you about it, here is a little wander through my weekend.

Yesterday we went to Fitzroy Market. As we boarded the train, I did a headcount and found that Dolly was missing. E hopped off at the next station and travelled back to find her at the station master's office. Dolly came along to the market and had her face painted.

Sylvia and I had a vegetarian sausage in bread and a cupcake. Sylvia chose a pink iced cupcake and I had the last vegan oreo cupcake. (But not the last vegan cupcake.)

We listened to a choir and the ukelele collective. We met friends. Sylvia's friend Amelia came along. They played hide and seek and ran around the stalls at the speed of light. I wandered around the stalls with Heather and picked up a few trinkets.

Later we went to Pastry Art Design in Smith Street for a snack with Heather. I had a chocolate bombolini. Very nice (though not as good as those at Sugardough). Then we hurried home for our house has needed a considerable amount of attention this weekend.

Last night we had to change a lightbulb (sounds simple but not when you have to wrangle with a 1960s fitting that had me heading out to the hardware store for tools) and put together a flatpack set of shelves. This meant that this morning we could shift around furniture in Sylvia's bedroom and organise her toys in the ever-present quest for more storage space.

Re-organisation usually means chaos before order reigns. A lunch break at Little Deer Tracks was just what we needed. The courtyard with its colourful painting is conducive to relaxing time-out. I had the carrot and haloumi fritters with tzatziki and an avocado and cucumber salad. Sylvia had the baked beans and a hash brown. E had the nachos. All good food. As I feared Sylvia was not keen on the home made version, preferring her baked beans from a tin. My fritters were crispy and puffy but I prefer them more dense. E loved his nachos, which were rather substantial.

After the big lunch, I was glad to have some leftover pizza for dinner. It just needed some vegetables. Last night when I made pizza, we had some vegetable sticks with hummus for an appetiser before the pizza. Tonight, I whipped up a salad with some old pumpkin and feta from the fridge. If I had had tomatoes and green leaves, I might have added them.

The pumpkin roasted while I cleaned up and E played with Sylvia outside. I didn't have an avocado for my dressing like Angela so I made up the dressing. It didn't have quite the tartness that I was after but the spring onions gave some bite. The salad was put together without much reference to the recipe that I was supposedly following. Hence my omission of the hemp seeds. I am looking forward to trying them out another time.

Unsweetened vanilla hemp milk is heaven, heaven, heaven in coffee (or chai, which is more your thing! :P ) and I had hemp seeds served on my salad tonight. Good luck using yours! I know you'll make magic with them.

I agree with Hannah...I wish we could get hemp seeds here in Tassie! We can buy semi-rancid milled meal that has to be sold as "Pet Food" in our local health food shop for $80 a kilo imported from Canada if we are really keen...why can't we get the Victorian stuff? Anyway, I would make hemp seed milk out of it and would make some amazing hempy hot chocolate! YUM! Now that the son and heir lives in Melbourne I might have to head over there to invest in some hempy goodness. Tasmania is still an island full of prisoners... vegan prisoners!...sigh...

Thanks Fram - I was really surprised to see hemp seeds for sale as I had thought they weren't for sale here either - I read somewhere that they are still illegal (despite not being from the same hemp plants as cannabis) but can be sold for skin care. Actually the seeds I bought are Australian but not terribly cheaper than your Canadian import - not sure I will keep buying them at this price but I wanted to try them. At least the bags in Wholefoods were smaller than the northcote packages I saw!

What a great weekend (except for the storage space challenges, I share that difficulty despite having theoretically enough - I just expand into it!) :) Melbourne seems to do wonderful vegan cupcakes and I am thrilled you found hemp seeds. Can't wait to see what else you make!

Thanks Kari - I know that even as it feels like we have done well in creating more storage space, that we will fit it and more before long! I haven't eaten many vegan cupcakes when out in Melbourne (but I don't tend to buy cupcakes much at all)

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.